


Ashes, Ashes

by DragonFire026



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: INFINITY WAR SPOILERS heavily implied, Steve's Pov, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 06:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonFire026/pseuds/DragonFire026
Summary: We all fall down...





	Ashes, Ashes

Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posy…  
Ashes, ashes…  
We all…  
Fall…  
_Down_. 

~

It is ash that he tastes first. 

Ash, not blood, grinds between his teeth, tasting of charcoal, tasting of despair. He almost wishes for blood instead. At least blood has promise, at least blood has life. 

Ash is just…silence. Ash is pain. Ash is death. 

And it is death that is all around him. 

Spread across this battlefield are his comrades, people he has called his friends for years now. Here they are, fighting this war together, and now…now… _now_ , after battle and blood and tears and agony…

Now what? 

His mind races; he is used to solutions, variables coming together and making sense at the end of chaos and gunfire. 

He needs _answers_ , having none makes him _useless_ , and he’s not content _sitting here _, resigned to the reality that at the end of all this, there is emptiness, a void, nothing he can do.__

__Nothing he can do._ _

__He doesn’t know how many have faded away to nothing by the time he turns, acknowledges the others standing around him, some of them crying, some of them slack-jawed, pained._ _

__This is not loneliness._ _

__This is not defeat._ _

__This is raw, an untamed blend of the two, and it hollows out his chest with a deep, powerful agony that makes him want to roar at the graying sky. Thunder rolls, he wonders if it’s over, wonders why it didn’t take him too._ _

__He watched his best friend disappear. How many more went with him? How many more pieces, fragments, until they all break apart?_ _

__What is left?_ _

__He kneels to the ground. It is all he can do._ _

__He kneels, a hand brushing at what remains._ _

__Ashes, ashes._ _

___We all fall down_. _ _

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after seeing Infinity War for the second time last night, when I could (finally) form coherent thoughts about this piece of chaos-incarnate. 
> 
> I'd say enjoy, but...
> 
> *offers you hugs instead*


End file.
